Dutch legislator to travel to Britain despite entry ban (3rd Lead)

Feb 12, 2009, 12:07 GMT

Amsterdam - Controversial Dutch legislator Geert Wilders was due to travel to Britain on Thursday despite an entry ban ordered by British authorities, Dutch media reported.

Speaking at a press conference at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, Wilders showed reporters his boarding pass and said the British Midland airline would take him on board later Thursday.

'I also hope I can enter the country,' he said.

The leader of the liberal-rightist Freedom Party PVV, which is highly critical of Islam and migrants, was invited to London by a member of the House of Lords for a showing of his controversial political film Fitna.

British authorities decided to refuse Wilders entry after a Dutch court ruled on January 21 that he should be prosecuted for alleged discrimination and incitement to violence and hatred.

Britain said Wilders posed a threat to public security.

Wilders, who has described the British decision against him as 'illustrative of the fear of Islam in Britain,' said he hoped the public upheaval over his trip to London may have changed the minds of the British authorities.

He also called upon British Muslims and House of Lords member Baron Nazir Ahmed to engage in a public debate with him. Ahmed has defended the ban on Wilders.

Dutch television reported that Wilders would be met by the Netherlands' ambassador to Britain on his arrival at an airport in London later Thursday.

A final decision about Wilders' entry to Britain was expected be made at the airport's immigration service.

'I am assuming I will succeed, but I am not taking an army with me to force my entry,' Wilders said.

Dutch news wire ANP quoted a British immigration official who declined to comment on the Wilders case, saying 'in general, people who are refused entry into Britain are always sent back immediately.'

Wilders said if Britain were to send him back to the Netherlands, he would formally protest. If refused entry, he would also debate the issue in parliament with Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende and Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen, he said.

Wilders said he had received broad support and hundreds of e-mails from people in Britain who said they were embarrassed by their government's decision to refuse him entry.

Under European Union law, EU-members may refuse entry to people who threaten public order, security or health.

Repeated requests by the Dutch government to Britain to reconsider the entry ban have had no impact.

Dutch EU legislator Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaerts said on Thursday the court ruling to prosecute Wilders may not be the reason he was being refused entry into Britain.

'The British decision is perplexing. This contradicts the rights of European Union citizens,' the Liberal VVD party legislator said.

Hennis-Plasschaerts said she wrote a letter to the European Commission requesting that it investigate whether Britain may refuse entry to Wilders.

On March 27, 2008, Wilders released via the internet his 16-minute film that warns of the spread of radical Islam and the alleged 'Islamization' of the Netherlands.

On December 8, he was quoted in the Dutch daily Spits newspaper saying he would travel abroad with his film to create international 'alliances for peace and against Islamization.'